Throw yourself to the wolves

I survived my half marathon. I am not going to lie, I was extremely nervous and stressed about this one. Mainly because I felt incredibly ill-prepared for it. The last half I ran was April 12, and I felt amazing. It was a good one, but pretty much since that moment in time I had let my running game slack a little bit and I felt horrible about running. Mainly because suddenly my allergies kicked in and my body got sick and weak and running has been just plain hard. 

I am not going to say that suddenly everything felt perfect yesterday at my half. It did not. But it felt better than any of the previous runs I have done, (for about 10.5 miles that is!) and this gives me hope that in a little while I should be able to return to my previous threshold.  It’s kind of like going in cold turkey to a half marathon. Not typically recommended.  I in essence just threw myself to the wolves and waited to see what the outcome would be.

Friday night I went to my old gym after work, bound and determined to get in a good workout.  I got on my familiar comfortable treadmills and went for it. It felt really good. I actually was able to run solidly at a 6.2 mile per hour pace for 3 miles. This was happiness to me.  Then for good measure I did 1 more mile. So In the end I completed 4 miles in 39 minutes. This was a step. This was the first run that felt manageable.  I needed that to have any mental shot of being able to run yesterday. I was in fact feeling the high so I went ahead and did a full on upper body workout and it felt great.  I had my headphones in and I just went around the gym doing my thing.  I finished up with about an hour and 40 minutes. So about 40 minutes of running, an hour of strength training and 755 calories burned. Best workout in a long while. 

 And then I was tired.  So I went home and ate great, mindfully.  Chris made delicious stuffed bell peppers for dinner and we took the dogs for a walk.  Great night. We got to sleep in Saturday and then we had to drive to Eugene for the packet pick up for our half marathon.  I was trying to be incredibly conscious of my eating on Saturday because this would be the day I was going to binge or lose it if it were going to occur.  Plus I was not exercising. It was rest day and those typically tend to be extra challenging for me.  I tried very hard all day to make good mindful decisions and was very proud that I had not binged or overate. I had an incredibly solid day. I tried to drink my water in preparation for the half yesterday.  We had delicious spaghetti for dinner with bread. MMM. Bread.

Sunday morning we had to wake up so early. 4:30 kind of early.  Eek.  No one wants to be awake or think about running 13 miles at 4:30 in the morning.  But I got up, got ready, and we were out the door by like 5 or a little after. Had to drive the hour and 15 minutes to Eugene.  The run started at 7 AM.  Oh, all so early.  I don’t think I was awake at all for most of these hours. Just sleep walking.  And I started to doubt why on earth I want to run. I always doubt my desire to run when I have to wake up so early. 

I was nervous.  I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it.  I certainly had not ran that far in a while.  But I told myself that I was just going to do the best I could and that was all I could possibly do. I actually started out conservatively.  I had no intention of pushing myself crazy because I knew I was going to have a distance to get thru.  I settled at about a 10:30 pace for a while.  But the thing was I felt REALLY good. I felt comfortable and like I could keep this going for a while. And I did.  Earlier this week running 5 miles outside was hell. Like I hated every moment of it so I kept replaying that run in my brain.  Eek.  So when I finally passed the 5 mile mark and I still felt comfortable good I was happy.  I knew eventually I was going to give out.  My body just isn’t ready just yet for this distance so I tried to be as conservative as possible and for the love of God tried to not mentally beat myself up for going so slow.

I was actually doing pretty well until mile 8 hit and suddenly there was a very long, gradual but obvious uphill. So much so that my brain went what the fuck and I had to alternate between a run and a walk.  This really started to kill my time.  May pace slipped farther and farther and at some point you just don’t care as your body can’t go that fast at all.  Once I passed the hill stretch I felt okay. At about mile 9 or so we came up on the finish line, but of course had to run past it and around another 4 miles.  I kept looking over at the people finishing while I still had 4 miles to run. Oh well. I kept saying I’ll be back for you in 4 miles.  It’s the crazy things we must do and say to keep ourselves moving on a grueling 13 mile run.  About mile 10 we had yet another stupid hill. I was like, are you freaking trying to kill us?  And I tried to must energy thru it.  My energy was all but depleted and then at approximately 10.5 miles I hit my wall.  You know, that point in time where I was certain all of my energy reserves were gone and I felt dead. 

I instantly got grumpy and tired and kept repeating things in my head like why on earth do you like this? This is such torture.  I wasn’t a happy girl. But I swear it was because of exhaustion and lack of food and dehydration.  But I kept moving. Albeit slowly.  My pace slowed to like 11:45 minute miles.  I would get a burst of energy and it would drop to 10 minute miles and then I couldn’t hold it.  Everything between miles 10.5 and 13.25 (yes the course ran an extra .15 miles which always sucks when you are that ready to be done!)  Those 2.75 miles were insanely hard.  And I watched my time slip and slip.  I had a decent time going up until mile 8.  I could have even survived thru that 10 mile mark.  It was those last 2.75 miles that killed me.  Oh well.

This is the effects of the lack of training or running.  This is what happens when you throw yourself to the wolves ill prepared.  So I finally crossed the finish line at 2:27:10.  This is not my favorite time.  It was much slower than I like, but it’s also not my worst time ever either.  I am okay with it. I am okay with it because I did my best.  I am okay with it because I was scared I wouldn’t even be able to run at all. 

I learned that I do have a breaking point. I learned that I can show up and run a half but don’t expect great things when you aren’t trained.  I’m blessed I could accomplish this time given all of the circumstances leading up to it.  My body was not trained for the distance and I felt it.  At mile 10.5 is when I became acutely aware that my body wasn’t conditioned to 2 plus hours of running just yet.  My right thigh started to ache.  Nothing in particular just a dull ache of overuse.  It didn’t hurt. It was just something of note.  Also, I was certain I was dehydrated.  It wasn’t crazy hot, but it was warm.  It was early and I was tired. I am not making excuses.  I am proud that I finished and ran most all of it considering how challenging things were for me as of late.

It’s a great jumping off point.  Now I just keep working my training plan and things will get better. I am aware of this.  I am proud nonetheless because I did manage to run most of it. Like 98% and that’s good enough.  My body is wonky when it comes to running though.  I can run just fine, it’s the coming down from the run.  It’s the after affects that suck.  I have a sensitive stomach for sure. 

As soon as we finished, I was thirsty and immediately downed a bottle of some tea thing they gave me.  And then for some dumb reason when we were done Chris wanted to go over and try a little bit of wine that was there. I literally had like less than a shot glass size full of wine.  A little taste. Then they had pancakes. I ate like 1.5 pancakes with a tiny amount of syrup.  I questioned whether I should have ate anything at all.  The answer was I should not have.

As we were walking back to the car I could tell my stomach was upset. Like going to throw up sick.  I already get motion sickness as a whole. Car rides don’t typically make me sick, but when you take into account what my body just endured and then put me in a car, I get so freaking sick.  Once again about half way home I had to have Chris pull over at a rest stop where I proceeded to go into a bathroom and throw up.  Great.  I felt better immediately after removing a layer of what I consumed.  But by the time we made it the other 50% of the way home I was feeling really sick again.  Immediately into the bathroom at home where more came up. Great.  We then took the dogs for a little walk since they were all cooped up.  And when I got home, yet again I threw up.  I apparently had to get everything out of my system.

I sat down for a little while to let things settle before finally eating something nourishing to help my stomach feel better. Enough time had passed.  I ate chicken and avocado mixed up together with onions and salt.  It was so freaking delicious and exactly what my body wanted.  Felt so much better after that.  I tried really hard all day to not overeat. Or eat away the close to 1,500 calories my body burned from my running.  I actually think I did a spectacular job all things said and done.  I did not binge. And this was happiness.  At the end of the day I ate like almost 1,800 calories yesterday. That is fabulous.  I try and eat between 1200-1400 daily, but on a half marathon day, an extra 400-600 calories is completely justified.  I was very proud of my ability to finally control myself.  When you want something bad enough you will make it happen.

So overall I had a perfectly wonderful in control healthy weekend and I felt great about things.  I am fairly confident that the way to running faster is practice, practice, practice and losing some pounds. The combined effects of both of these things happening congruently will eventually produce results. I am sure. 

Today I had planned on taking off from running but my niece is having a practice 5k run after school for her Girls on The Run Program and she invited me to join her as her running buddy so I will probably go and do that. I have to sneak out of work to do it but somethings are worth it! And then I will probably go to the gym and do some upper body strength training. Not touching the legs tonight. But then tomorrow I should definitely do a leg day then.  I have another half marathon this weekend. Yup, Sunday is the Portland Rock N Roll run.  I’m not going to say it’s going to be easy. It won’t. But after having done one yesterday hopefully my body is a little more prepared.  And that is about all I got for today. Be back tomorrow.